10 Days of Crazy

Just looking back through my calendar, to-do list, and photos from these ten days in order to write about what I crammed in fills me with anxiety! Amongst other things, this post will cover: The Tour de France, Iain going on camp, Camille visiting from Russia, moving house, and trying stick to my healthy eating/exercise regime. 

Last Friday, the circus that is the Tour de France came to town once again. Unlike last year in which Pau was a stage finish, this year Pau hosted a time trial which went on all day. You can only imagine how impossible it was to get around the city with this thing going on. Only once you've witnessed the TDF first hand can you understand the number of people involved in the event. It is crazy. We headed into town in the late afternoon, caught some of the riders on the Boulevard then managed to get an amazing seat at one of the bars next to the château, allowing us to have a few glasses of wine as the guys were whizzing past us. William is still too young to understand but he had fun cheering, especially when Amélie and Luca were there with him, doing the same. We ended up grabbing takeaway from the new Thai place that's opened on what will be our new street, and having dinner in the new playground at Beaumont along with Lee and Conrad. A great, easy way to end our day. 

On Sunday, we started getting serious again, as we had a meeting with Sara and Jean-Pierre to go over all the stuff for the house. We had lots of questions. And things to measure to make sure they were going to fit. They were mega stressed and Sara is clearly not happy about leaving her house. Awkward. 

Later on that day, Iain left for camp and he's going to be away all week. Not ideal given that we were due to officially collect the keys on Monday night. The plan was that I would do lots of packing while he was away so that it was a case of just moving boxes etc when he got back. I needed to organise the hire of a van, and I also thought it would be good to have a trolley for taking things from the street to the house as we won't be able to get a van in the courtyard. Lots. To. Do. But first, Camille. 

She arrived on Tuesday and I was amped to see her. Just the stories of life in Moscow, plus that fact that her Mum and Dad had moved there too. Absolutely mental. She's currently on a bit of a European tour (whilst studying for her Masters!) and she's just living the dream. She's probably working a bit too hard - as I liked to tell her, but she's clearly loving her job and enjoying all the travel she's getting to do at the moment. We didn't do a helluva lot in the three days she was here - lunch one day at Beanz, and dinner one night at Passage, and she managed to buy new glasses (!) but the joy of just hanging out and catching up was the real reason she was here. It was also ridiculously hot last week so hanging out in the garden and relaxing in the pool was exactly what both of us needed. Especially as I was also trying to pack up a house while she was here and we did a couple of wee runs to drop things off at the new place. The parking is tight! On Thursday we said our goodbyes at the train station - she was heading to Bordeaux for a wedding and we vowed that it wouldn't be so long until we were hanging out again. 

Then I turned my thoughts to full on flitting mode. 

On Saturday, the stress levels increased considerably. It was a palaver trying to organise a van hire in the first place but pick up and driving the thing, all on my own, just wasn't that much fun. Thankfully, Hayley and the kids came round to our place late on the Saturday afternoon so that I didn't have the added stress of doing it all with William in tow. I rode my bike up to Leclerc for the pick up and collected the van. Then I went to Leroy Merlin where I'd jacked up the hire of a courier trolley. Doing all of this in a mixture of broken French and english was tough but I did it, I didn't scrape the van, and I even got a good parking spot outside the house when I got back home. Another job done. Phew. 

Iain got home late on Saturday night after his match and surveyed the land. Here we go again. He'd roped in Fish, Conrad and Roxy to help us and my god, did we need it. Once again a house move goes to show how much stuff you can acquire in such a short space of time. Mental. We managed to get all the big stuff done in the morning which allowed me to stay on in the old place and empty the kitchen in the afternoon. No matter how many times you tell yourself, you're never quite prepared for the amount of individual items that a kitchen can hold. I packed and I cleaned for a good chunk of the afternoon but finally, I had to throw in the towel, go to the new place and start unpacking and sorting. We had guests coming! I got to our new place and Iain had already built the beds and the place was starting to look like a home. Maybe we are old hands at this?! Here's to our new home and, hopefully, no more moves for at least three years. ;-)

One final point to note from this 10 Days of Crazy is that while all this was going on I still maintained my daily training session from the Joe Wicks #28DaysOfSweat programme that I'd committed to. Go me. I even roped Camille in while she was here. And my food's been on the healthy side too. Hopefully I can start to loose a bit of the extra weight I'm carrying. 

And breathe....

LM :-)